Painting Tenerife: San Cristobal de La Laguna 01

In February 2013, I spent 3 weeks painting the Canary Island Tenerife. My first two posts about that island were referring to places called “Los Gigantes” and “Garachico”. Today I will present here some watercolour and ink sketches from San Cristobal de la Laguna, a town in the Northern part of the island.

We had visited the capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the day before and were a little bit disappointed by most of the town. Then I had read that San Cristobal was the former capital and that La Laguna’s historical centre was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999. Consequently, I thought that there might be some interesting motifs for me.

Unfortunately it was quite a grey and even rainy day and the light cast on the town really wasn’t motivating me to paint. As we began meandering through the town, I became worried that in fact it wasn’t going to present me with anything interesting at all, but as we happened upon the bustling Sunday market, I quickly found a number of motifs, the first ones being quite funny. I did the ink drawings on the site, adding the colours later at home. The first one represents a fish stand.

To be honest, I hate fish. I mean, I hate dead fish, and wherever dead fishes are, I run away, unable to stand the smell and the sight of them. It might be because I was a passionate diver in the past and spent many hours playing with lovely, living fishes in the depths of the seas, that I firmly believe that is where they belong! Anyway, that day I found that motif so funny that I had to draw it. But believe me, I did it very fast, as I gradually started to feel very sick in my tummy. But I understand that true art demands its sacrifices…

You might think that I exaggerated the size of the big fish in the foreground.. perhaps I did… but really, not that much, as it was exactly that which drew my gaze, the contrast between him and the hundreds of little fishes laying in rows behind him. That guy, although dead, really looked for all the world as if he was thinking: “How did I land here?” Which is what I am often thinking about myself on this Earth… that painting could well be a self-portrait!

You might also believe that I invented the next motif… I swear I did not!

So hilarious… and I would have given the world to know what was going on inside the head of the nun… and of the pig! The chickens had lost their heads, so at least they hadn’t any thoughts, presumed chicken usually think with their heads…

What attracted me in the flower stand above, besides the many flowers which I anyway love to paint, was the woman herself. She stood there for a long time, totally immobile. I myself stood quite a while there, sketching and observing, and I could not find out who that woman was. I first thought she was the shop owner, but would she have a bag in her hand if she was? Was she a client? But where was the shop owner then? And why didn’t she move at all? I am not even sure if she was alive!

Later that day, I painted some more motifs from the town itself, as it finally stopped raining and the sun came out, coinciding with our discovery of a pretty part of the town, and I will present these sketches in my next post. But for now let us end with a well-deserved “Churros and Chocolate” treat!

Now, for those who don’t know what Churros are, and still don’t understand it after looking at my sketch, here is what Wikipedia has to say:

“…A churro, sometimes referred to as a Spanish doughnut, is a fried-dough pastry—predominantly choux—based snack. Churros are popular in Spain, France, the Philippines, Portugal, Latin America (including Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands) and the United States. There are two types of churros in Spain, one which is thin (and sometimes knotted) and the other which is long and thick (porra). They are both normally eaten for breakfast dipped in hot chocolate or café con leche….”

Well, these churros from San Cristobal were a killer.. not only in quality but also in quantity!

The paintings of San Cristobal de La Laguna presented in this gallery are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards, in my FAA Gallery. Please press the link below to access it.

Buy prints online!

The Giclee prints from the above mentioned Online shop are manufactured in the USA and sent directly to the client from there. For personal or financial reasons it might not be appropriate for everybody to order their prints in the USA. Also, you might prefer to purchase my Giclee prints hand-signed. If so, you can alternatively order directly from me. Simply contact me indicating which painting you are interested in and in which size. Go to Goodaboom Boutique to see a guideline of pricing for different dimensions.

 

Painting Lanzarote 03: The Market in Teguise

 

Teguise, also known as “La Villa”, is an enchanting little town situated in the central part of Lanzarote. It was the ancient capital of Lanzarote (until 1852) and has uniquely charming streets, palaces and culture. Many of its buildings dating back to the 17th century, display beautiful carvings in wood and stone around the doors and windows.

And Teguise is especially famed for its Sunday market, which I more appropriately would describe as a stall feast!

Living in Spain, I am used to these weekly markets, which usually draw flocks of tourists. When I heard about the market of Teguise, I was expecting something similar, something which I personally don’t really enjoy: too much cheap and kitschy and old-fashioned stuff in the stalls, too many people in one spot, and, worse than anything, too much harassing from the stall owners. But the market in Teguise is so different! I fell in love with it from the first moment I entered. Although there were many similarities with the Spanish markets on the Peninsula, the ‘vibe’ and the setting were very different, and created a wonderful atmosphere. Like everywhere else on the island, the ambiance was such that you suddenly fancied buying everything and eating or drinking everything which was proposed. But if you didn’t, the merchants were not fed-up with you and still thanked you for your visit with a wonderful smile.

It was really like a big party, with stalls from people of many different nationalities. Never more apparent than with the food: German sausages, Spanish dishes, English breakfasts, American hot dogs, French crepes – something for everyone!

Many different stalls line the old, cobbled streets with all sorts of goods including; clothes, shoes, ceramics, handbags, paintings, toys, and many other crafts. In the centre of the town, the church square, two groups of musicians entertain everyone throughout the morning with pan-pipe music and folklore dancing. And it’s all given a carnival atmosphere by Canarian dancers and hair braiders. I didn’t draw them though, too complicated with all the people around!

One might think, when one looks at my sketches, that there were not as many people as I am saying there were. But to sketch on the site, I normally have to step aside, to be able to focus and concentrate on what I do. However, the market was scattered over a very large area, almost the whole town, this having the wonderful effect that one didn’t feel oppressed by the mass.

As usual, the sketches have been drawn with an ink pen or a pencil on the site, and I added the water colours later on at the hotel. Most of the time from memory, which might explain why the colours are not especially faithful to reality. The sky is far from being blue, how one would perhaps expect from such a location, but remember, we visited Lanzarote in winter, and also strong winds were blowing quite often and the sky was a wild ever-changing mix of blue, grey, black white and other colours from the rainbow (these colours being a little bit enhanced by my fantasy though….

These paintings, as well as many others of Lanzarote, are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper, canvas and metal, and also as greeting cards. Please click on the button below to access

Miki’s FAA store

The Giclee prints from the above mentioned Online shop are manufactured in the USA and sent directly to the client from there. For personal or financial reasons it might not be appropriate for everybody to order their prints in the USA. Also, you might prefer to purchase my Giclee prints hand-signed. If so, you can alternatively order directly from me. Simply contact me indicating in which size. Go to

Goodaboom Boutique

to see a guideline of pricing for different dimensions.

I also sell A3 posters (297mm x 420mm) as high quality digital prints on a Heavyweight White 350gsm paper, each packed in cello with card stiffener.

Poster Price: 50 euros.

They are a great alternative to the Giclee prints, to a more affordable price.

(the price does not include packing&shipping)

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Painting Lanzarote 01: Arrecife, The Capital

As I said in my previous post, “Christmas in Lanzarote”, I just spent 3 weeks painting in Lanzarote, one of the Spanish Canary Islands. With the island being quite small, we stayed in an hotel in the main town Arrecife for the first 2 weeks, and from there, walking or driving, we made many excursions throughout the the whole island. The hotel being on the seafront, we had a wonderful view of the bay, a small harbour and part of the town itself.

The following sketch is the very first I did of Lanzarote from our hotel balcony, on the first day, just before going out and exploring the town.

Almost everywhere in Lanzarote, there is always a ferry somewhere, arriving or leaving, probably the ferries doing the traffic between the many Canary islands. I love ferries, I find them very romantic and exciting, above all when I am aboard. Having said that, they are not especially aesthetic in a painting, this is why I often use only a few lines and much white to represent them, as I did in the painting above.

In Lanzarote, at least as we were there, the weather was changing all the time and the sky was always a wild mix of blue, white and black, full of sun, wind and rain at the same time! And the sunsets were often fabulous…

As usual, all the sketches were done on site, and the water colours added later in the hotel room. It is the method which best works for me, although this way I often have to invent the colours, my visual memory not being the best.. I know, I know, lethal for a visual artist!

Arrecife is a wonderful town, full of charming and characterful places. I especially loved all the places with boats, a labyrinth of little harbours which seem enclosed into the town. One gets the impression that houses, cars and boats live together in the most peaceful and harmonic life!

Personally Arrecife enchanted me with its serene atmosphere. Everybody there seems to be in a great mood, the natives as well as the tourists. They all seem to have the ability -and the time!- to take time, the result being a very happy, relaxed ambiance. I guess they have their problems too, like everybody else, so I suppose it is their way of dealing with them which is different. It is not like the “todo bien” or “mañana” with which one has to endure all the time on the Spanish peninsula: which is in fact more a way of putting the head in the sand and postponing all problems to the next day… and eventually to the next century! But it is not like in the Caribbean Islands either, where time seems to stop and everybody needs an eternity to move from one point to the other or speak a whole sentence. No, it is something between, an apparently healthy way of going through life. I think I have learned from them a little bit in these 3 weeks, I do feel a little more relaxed since I am back, although I have to deal with bad and sad things at the moment, and even in the time we spent in Lanzarote.

These paintings, as well as many others of Lanzarote, are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper, canvas and metal, and also as greeting cards. Please click on the button below to access my

FAA store

The Giclee prints from the above mentioned Online shop are manufactured in the USA and sent directly to the client from there. For personal or financial reasons it might not be appropriate for everybody to order their prints in the USA. Also, you might prefer to purchase my Giclee prints hand-signed. If so, you can alternatively order directly from me. Simply contact me indicating in which size. Go to

Goodaboom Boutique

to see a guideline of pricing for different dimensions.

 

I also sell A3 posters (297mm x 420mm) as high quality digital prints on a Heavyweight White 350gsm paper, each packed in cello with card stiffener.

Poster Price: 50 euros.

They are a great alternative to the Giclee prints, to a more affordable price.

(the price does not include packing&shipping)

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Painting in The Pyrenees

So, we are back home, about 3 weeks after we left for a painting trip to France. Well, it was meant to be a painting trip, but for many different reasons, some of them personal, others professional or due to the weather, it became something else and there was not so much painting involved. Never mind, it was great to be away. Going away from home always refreshes my brain, heart and soul. And in this case even my body as we had to face some low temperatures after the extremely hot summer we just came from.

We started with our Boomobile (our 7 metres long atelier and music studio on wheels) from where we live, in Turre, Provincia de Almeria, Andalusia, Monday the 10th of September 2012. We drove directly to Benidorm, where we had a wonderful family reunion with my parents -who live there half of the year- and with my brother and his painter wife Isabelle -normally living in Paris-, and who were spending some holidays in the region. I hadn’t seen them for a while, and it was great to catch up with them, and once again to browse through the beautiful sketches Isabelle had made of the surrounding trees and mountains. I of course had no time to paint, but here is a painting of Benidorm I did some years ago when I was still living not far from there.

Everybody who knows Benidorm would say that it has no artistic attractiveness at all, being just a boring alignment of hundreds of skyscrapers, but I think I did quite a good job there with my gouache and painting knives!
On the 12th we hit the road very early, having on board my parents and their Pyrenean shepherd dog Maya. You might want to see how our passengers looked like, so here they are. First a double portrait of my parents, in pastel chalk and coloured pencils, painted about 10 years ago

And a watercolour portrait of the dog Maya, who really looks like the mountains where she comes from!

Our aim was to reach Tarbes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France, the same day. A long trip for a motorhome, about 800 kilometres, where we rarely do more than 200 kilometres a day, and often even less, simply enjoying to be out there and free. But we were in a hurry, having an appointment in Tarbes the next day. Tarbes is the main town of the High Pyrenees, and also the town were I was born, and where I spent the first years of my childhood. And the town where my parents now spend the other half of the year. The trip went without problems, the weather was still fine at that point, and we crossed the Pyrénées at the C0l du Pourtalet, this time without snow. As always I was amazed by the beauty of these mountains and surrounding landscapes, although I do prefer them covered with snow, as they were last time when we crossed them at the same place, early spring about 2 years ago. Somehow my artist soul always feels nostalgic when I go to the Pyrenees: I was too young as we moved away when I was a child, and had not yet developed sensitivity and fascination for the beauty of nature. What a waste!

We arrived in Tarbes early evening and as always I felt quite emotional to be there. Emotional, but also torn, in the sense that I have no idea if I should feel home there, or not.. somehow I do, mainly because my roots are there, and I have some second grade family still living in the region.

The time in Tarbes was filled with some appointments and other personal matters, and I had unfortunately no time to paint. Although the weather was not good at all, almost all the time. It is always amazing, when you live in something like a desert, which is more or less where we live, with very high temperatures many months of the year and hardly rain, to be suddenly immersed in rain and cold. And as always one forgets about it, and arrives there with no appropriate clothes!

Here is a sketch of Tarbes I did 2 years ago in Spring. It is probably not very representative of the town itself, but I liked the happy motive, a little house among blossoming trees and flowers behind the area where we were parked with our Boomobile.

So, that’s it for now. In my next trip post, I will write about our stay in Saint-Bertrand de Comminges and show of the paintings and sketches I managed to do there.

These land- and townscapes, as well as many others from Spain and France, are currently available as Giclee prints in many dimensions, on paper and canvas, as well as greeting cards. Just click on the painting above to access my shop online.

The Giclee prints from the above mentioned Online shop are manufactured in the USA and sent directly to the client from there. For personal or financial reasons it might not be appropriate for everybody to order their prints in the USA. Also, you might prefer to purchase my Giclee prints hand-signed. If so, you can alternatively order directly from me. Simply contact me indicating in which size. Go to Goodaboom Boutique to see a guideline of pricing for different dimensions.

I also sell A3 posters (297mm x 420mm) as high quality digital prints on a Heavyweight White 350gsm paper, each packed in cello with card stiffener.

Poster Price: 50 euros.

They are a great alternative to the Giclee prints, to a more affordable price.

(the price does not include packing&shipping)

The Albufera de Valencia in Spain 02

Albufera de Valencia 10 - Watercolour and ink, by Miki

Some more paintings from my trip to the Albufera de Valencia in 2004. But no time to add text to the sketches today, so l will let them speak for themselves. Anyway these landscapes radiate so much peace – better to keep silent and enjoy.

Albufera de Valencia 16 - Watercolour and ink, by Miki

Albufera de Valencia 25 - Watercolour and ink, by Miki

Now I have to start preparing our 6 weeks trip, at least mentally,  the most difficult part being to make the choices of the right clothes, the right hardware and much more important: the right painting material. We will be on 6 different flights altogether – Kevin even more and he will have to go back to England for a gig in the middle of the holidays- and to avoid long check-in and luggage waiting time in all the airports, we have decided to travel solely with hand luggage: a big challenge for 6 weeks! Not my favourite challenge though, I hate to have to choose which painting material and sketching books I take with me. You can be sure that I will always be missing something important there! And when I try to find an art supply shop abroad, in places I don’t know, it takes me so long that my lust to paint is gone when I find it… if I find it: usually I give up before!

As usual, these artworks are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widget below to access my FAA Gallery

I have much more paintings from the Albufera. If you want to see them all, and also many more paintings from other regions from Spain, simply click on the picture below.

Miki's Spain Sketches and Paintings Gallery

The Albufera de Valencia in Spain 01

Albufera de Valencia 01 - Watercolour and ink, by Miki

As I said before, I am right now trying to catch up with my artistic past, browsing through loads of sketching books I found recently in my house on the Costa Blanca which we had abandoned some years ago to live 300 kilometres further down the coast. I’ve already published some sketches here from my past in Germany and in France, and will probably show some more from these countries at some time. But right now I am going back to Spain, to a region called “Albufera de Valencia”, which I visited and painted in 2005.

These trips back to my past seem to touch me quite deeply by the way, as I suddenly dream every night of places and people from before, something which I never do normally. And I don’t like it really: my dreams always interact when my reality, and right now I really have the feeling of living parallel lives at the same time, with different people and in different places. I almost have the feeling to betray Kevin… It is WEIRD!

But back to the Albufera now, and let’s get first some facts from the Wikipedia:

“…The Albufera is a saltwater lagoon and estuary on the Gulf of Valencia coast in eastern Spain. It is the main portion of the Parc Natural de l’Albufera (“Albufera Nature Reserve”), with a surface area of 21,120 hectares (52,200 acres). The natural biodiversity of the nature reserve allows a great variety of fauna and flora to thrive and be observed year-round….”

And some location info from the Google map:

Albufera de Valencia, Spain

For me who loves watching birds so much, and who is always in search of a rare species, the place was really a Paradise. I even saw a purple heron there, a bird I had been wanting to see for a long time, since my sister-in-law, a real expert in ornithology, had told me that they were very rare. I spotted the purple beauty per accident, as I was driving by in my car. It was really a big chance that I saw it, as his colours were the perfect camouflage among the purple and orange surrounding plants. Perhaps they are not that rare at all in the end, just that we don’t see them?  Anyway,  I just had time to stop the car and make a photo, for the proof you know, and it was gone!

This is why the heron on the painting is not the purple one… but well, the white ones are really beautiful too, I find, and so much much easier to sketch on the site!

Albufeira de Valencia 03 - Watercolour and ink, by Miki

Well, some days later, when I was back home, I did a drawing of that rare bird in my Moleskine personal birds book, with coloured pencils, but it was just a copy of a picture in an ornithology book. Funny to read the annotations next to the picture though.. the bird names in different languages, and, written in Spanish, the exact place and date where I saw it… yes, I was such a person at that time, always eager to draw and document everything! It makes me smile today, but somehow I like that person I was, perhaps even better than the lazy actual one…

Not only the birds were in search of food in the waters there. There were anglers everywhere, alone or in small groups, and the sight of them was always inspiring to me. Plus, they hardly moved: the perfect subject!

Albufeira de Valencia 13 - Watercolour and ink, by Miki

I will stop here for now, but this week there will be some more blog posts about the Albufera as I have got many lovely  sketches from that trip. And then, on Sunday, we leave again, for a six weeks painting and musical adventure… the destination will be announced only shortly before, so that fans haven’t got the time to prepare an assault in the airports! 

As usual, these artworks are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widget below to access my FAA Gallery

Back to My Golfing Past in Soufflenheim

Houses in Soufflenheim - by Miki

Before I moved to Spain, I used to live in Reute -see here my previous post about it -, a charming little town in the South West of Germany, in a region called “The Three Countries Triangle”, the three countries obviously being Germany, France and Switzerland. And it was indeed a fabulous location to do loads of exciting stuff, like skiing, diving (in the Swiss lakes) or golfing.

We had the chance to have a nice little flat on a wonderful golf course in the little Alsatian town of Soufflenheim, directly opposite us on the other side of the French border, about 80 kilometres away from Reute, and we used to spend most of our weekends there.

Soufflenheim in France

A few sketches from that past – I am speaking about the years between 1996 and 2000- reappeared as I was emptying my house in Albir, Costa Blanca, last week. I must say that I became very emotional as I saw them, as I did enjoy my time there: the golfing itself, the course, the town and its people. Being French, and having lived at that time for almost 30 years in a German environment, I was happy to hear my language, even if the people there spoke it in a quite different way than I was used to! But their accent was delightful, funny and “cosy” somehow.

All the sketches I found were just in ink, and I simply added water colour to them, with a tiny fragment of memory I have of the real colours there and loads of fantasy! But I am quite sure that the tree leaves were green though, so at least this will be ok!

Place de La Gare in Soufflenheim - by Miki

The above sketch mentioned “Place de la Gare, 8h” (Railways Station square) on it. I don’t remember why it was called so, or even if there was really a train station in Soufflenheim. But judging by the buildings, it was quite an old place and probably the station had moved somewhere else. Anyway I remember exactly when I did that sketch. I had got up early that day and gone to the local bakery to buy some croissants for the breakfast. I had made some quick sketches on the way, and when I had come back home, I had put the radio on:

they announced Princess Diana’s death!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I even found a sketch I did on another morning, while having my first coffee. It makes me smile that at that time I already loved to draw coffee mugs and put them on the foreground! Soufflenheim being a quite famous ceramic town in the region, that special mug had probably been bought there, but I don’t really remember it, and I invented the colours. The design though is true to the original drawing. Funny too to see which book is on the table, next to the mug : “Russckij Jasik”.. I was learning Russian at that time, my dream being to read the Russian classical authors in their own language! Well, I learned some Russian, but unfortunately my reading never went further than some short poems…

Our Flat in Soufflenheim - by Miki

The paintings on the wall behind the big yellow lamps was a golf painting by me: a golf player in the woods searching for his ball! I wished I had a photo of it, as with all the other things I drew and painted around that time…

The Golf Course -I hope it stills exists!- was designed by the famous German golf professional Bernhard Langer, and is just one of the most beautiful I have ever played, with its 18 lakes, its mini-forest and the hundreds of more or less wild animals. One of the most challenging too: you had better take a big bag of balls with you if you wanted to finish a round, as most of them became lost in the many woods and lakes!!

Sometimes I stood there alone, a whole week, between 2 weekends, and used to play a round by myself every morning around 8. I adored it, the course was a nature Paradise at that time of the day. No other human being was on the course, wild animals such as does and deers were wondering around on the fairways, and I needed only 2 hours for the whole 18 holes, something very suited to my impatient nature. And sometimes I took a sketching book with me and did some rapid drawing.. like the one below.

Golf Club Soufflenheim - by Miki

The little lady in the background walking to the tee is not me though. Well, it could be me symbolically, but I didn’t look like that when I played golf. I never pulled my bag on a trolley, I carried it on my shoulder, like a real guy. And I only wore trousers, and always a cowboy hat or a baseball hat. I never was one of these female golf players whose main reason to play golf is to showcase their new outfit… in fact I was quite often told off for not complying with the golf course clothing etiquette! Well, I never liked rules, on the golf course or wherever… not that I am an anarchist though, I understand the need for rule,: I just find it hard to have them applied to me! 

What I also did there on occasion was to sketch the golfers in the Club house. The bar-restaurant had a wonderful terrace and I really enjoyed the opportunity to sit and relax there when we had an afternoon game on the weekend.With a glass of Cremant in one hand – Cremant is a typical Alsatian bubbly drink,  similar to Champagne  – and a pen in the other, sitting in front of that gorgeous natural view, I just felt as if I was in Paradise! Well, here are 4 of these golfers I sketched there on one of these occasions

Golfers in Soufflenheim 01 - by Miki

Golfers in Soufflenheim 02 - by Miki

It was the 19th of August 2000, probably one of the last times I was there before I moved to Spain. So, if you were there that day, and recognise yourself on the sketches, please say hello! But I doubt you will -recognise yourself I mean -, I was at that time not very good at reproducing similarity! But to be honest, I didn’t really try either, I was more interested in expressions and attitudes, more than in exact features. And what I especially loved in sketching golfers after their game, was that you could see in one second, through the body language, which kind of games they had just had: excellent or catastrophic. There was hardly anything else, especially not in Soufflenheim. And most of the time it was catastrophic.

Well, time to leave Soufflenheim now, I have nothing more to show. But I hope I will go back there one day.. and of course I would love to play the course again. Although, being out of practice, I guess I would need 100 balls for a round.. and unfortunately I gave all my balls to charity last week as I emptied my house! Well, not all, I kept the ones I was collecting, with the logos of the courses I had played around Europe and elsewhere. But I don’t think I could ever bring myself to play and lose them!

These artworks are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widget below to access my FAA Gallery

Oh, yes, and if after having bought my paintings, you still have some money left, you can buy my house in Albir, Costa Blanca. It is quite cheap on the market right now, a real deal, think of it as an investment: it will assume a huge value as soon as I am dead, me being the famous just-passed-away artist Miki!

Joe Bonamassa in Spain

Joe Bonamassa 01 - by Miki

Well, I am cheating  a little bit here… this artwork does not actually represent Joe Bonamassa  in Spain. But it does not matter, it is Joe with his guitar and all the divine electric sparkles he is filling space and time and fans with!

It is not  a total bluff though. We have just come back from a Joe Bonamassa gig in Murcia, Spain. As I discovered that he would be coming so close to us -we live 150 kilometres further south- I could not believe it: these stars normally honour Madrid, Barcelona and sometimes Bilbao with their presence, and that’s about it. Well, without wasting one second more I bought our tickets! The first time we had seen him was in July 2011, but that time we had to fly and drive thousand of kilometres for this pleasure. More precisely: it was in Loket, in the Czech Republic, at a concert by his supergroup Black Country Communion. In Loket I had suffered like hell, the concert being outside under non-stop rain. But here in Murcia we were sitting comfortably in a nice auditorium, and I could totally focus on the gig. One might think, that sitting in an armchair is not very rockmantic, but I don’t care, when I am listening to Joe, I simply want to enjoy it to the max. Well, I was not disappointed, the gig was a super feast for the ears and the eyes:

fab people, fab music, fab lights!

And I will certainly try to make some new painting of Joe, in Spain this time. The light patterns and colours at the show were artistically very inspiring to me.

I was especially happy – and to be honest, surprised  – to see Joe smiling quite often, and even making fun. Everybody there laughed at his joke about El Cortes Ingles, this Spanish department store chain. He had entered one of them on the morning of the gig, and was amazed about the size and the fact that you can buy there “a suit as well as a dog”!

I was also happy to see that the Spanish audience, probably about 90% of the total punters- really enjoyed the show. I didn’t appreciate so much the screaming of some of them  in the middle of a Joe solo, stuff like

“Guapo!”

or

“Ole”

 but one should not forget that these people come from a different culture, where these words and behaviour simply mean a deep mark of admiration. And well, even if bullfight is not very popular any more, the “ole” will probably stay a long time in the Spanish vocabulary!

Oh yes, a last funny detail. Perhaps you know it, I am not a very tall person.. well, I am not that tiny either: a whole 159 cm! At least in the morning… unfortunately, I am starting being in that age when one’s own size diminishes through out the day… this reminds me that when we were in Loket, we met Joe Bonamassa by accident in the town, and we had a photo taken with him. But when I saw it later at home, I forbade Kevin to publish it anywhere: I looked so small next to these 2 giants, like a dwarf really! Kevin had to photoshop me away…

Anyway, at the gig, I was a little bit worried that somebody would sit in front of me and I could not make the photos I wanted to. And by chance, until 10 minutes before the gig began, the seats in front of us remained empty although the room was gradually filling up. I could not believe my luck. But then suddenly, they arrived. A whole family. Mom, Dad and their 2 offspring,  2 very young children, twins probably, around 4 years old, spreading themselves in these sits in front of us. I ended up having in front of me probably the smallest gig attender in the world! He was of course, with his sister, the only children in the whole audience… isn’t it incredibly lucky? Normally, on such occasions, exactly the contrary happens: I always get in front of me the biggest person in the world! I was by the way wondering why the parents brought their children to the gig… well, obviously, the father was a musician, and he probably  wanted to make a Joe Bonamassa out of his son, using all possible tricks to motivate him: like for example using his son’s arm as a guitar neck and playing on it all the time. I am not so sure, but I had the feeling that the boy was not very responsive to music… for the first half of the gig he tried to impede everybody around to listen to the music, and slept the other half… a long way to go! Funny, yesterday at the swimming pool, Kevin randomly met a guy who told him about a genius 17 year-old musician playing in Los Gringos, a local band here. He said that he was like Joe Bonamassa. Why is it so hard to believe?  Well, the world is not as full of wonder kids as parents and friends want to believe 

And also, it takes much more than some kind of talent to be like Joe Bonamassa!

Joe Bonamassa 02 - by Miki

I was very happy to meet again The Pianist, the one I had seen on the DVD of the Royal Albert Hall in London, when I had seen Joe for the first time in my life. That pianist who had inspired me to some paintings. In Murcia I missed his little Buddha though…

The Pianist 02 - by Miki

Anyway, if you have a chance, go and see Joe, you won’t regret it. You can check here his tour dates

A big thanks from us to Joe for coming to us, and also to his manager Roy Wiseman for having organised the event in Murcia.

These artworks are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widget below to access my FAA Gallery

And if you are interested in seeing more of my music art, please click on the image below

Music Paintings Gallery - by Miki

My Home on Planet Goodaboom

My Home on Planet Goodaboom - by Miki

Sometimes, when I have nothing better to do, or just lack an energy to start a new painting, I revisit some of my immense drawers where hundreds of my past paintings are stocked. These are paintings from a time -not long ago really-  when I was not bothered with any kind of digitalisation and publication.  Painting is fab, but everything involved in the process of having them published on the net is awfully boring and time taking. In fact quite practical that I have these uncreative moments sometimes, at least I can do the boring job meanwhile!

Anyway, some days ago, I found per accident, not in a drawer but in  a big travel folder, loads of watercolours paintings, which I did not even remembered.  They are scenes from around the place where I live with my English Rocker: Planet Goodaboom! On that Planet everything is wild, and passionate, and loving: the Rocker, the skies, the trees, the houses, the sea, the mountains, me, etc…

You can see above our home on Planet Goodaboom. Well, it was like that as we started here and I painted it. It is a little bit bigger now, having gradually added some more rooms to be able to stock all the drawers full of paintings and all the guitars. But it is still an enchanting home, cosy and cut from the rest of the world, a love island, kind of…

A Village on Planet Goodaboom - by Miki

And this is a village nearby, with houses like piles of sugar cubes behind curtains of blossoms…

Well, I hope you love my Planet. If you love it so much that you want to have it on your walls, it is available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widgets below to access my FAA store

And more generally you can see all the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”. Just click -gently!- on my face.

Art and Sports 11 – Figure Skating

Figure skating 01 - by Miki

I am still on my sports arts journey, focussing on winter sports for the moment. And in order to paint winter themes I have to set my mind to a winter mood, to feel the cold and somehow romantic atmosphere. Well, we are in the middle of October, so I would say it is quite sensible to think about winter already. There was a time in my life -my Germany time-, when the winter could have started soon, And anyway, especially when I was living in Freiburg,  Switzerland being just around the corner, the snow was never very far away. But where I live now, in Andalusia, in the middle of the Almeria desert, it is not easy to think winter thoughts… although some might say,  I just need to stretch my mind to the Sierra Nevada, which is also not so far away…

Anyway, one of my favourite winter sports disciplines is figure skating on ice .I guess I will spend some time on this subject. I have started the series featuring couples skating, as it is what I most enjoy. I love the basic contrast between man and woman but still in search of unity and , the matching gear they put on are a delight for my eyes, In fact they all generally look like the perfect couples. Although I must say that some couples are veering away from that aesthetic perfection, typically when the guy is immense and the girl tiny, probably for the sake of easing the carrying and throwing. And call me old-fashioned, or  not liberated, but I don’t like it either when the girl looks like the guy , and inversely… In couples skating I especially love the increased tension through the double possibility of failure and the search for harmony and coordination. These guys really have many parameters to master to give a good show and achieve a high ranking.. what a performance really!

Now some words about painting figure skating. It is not as easy as I thought, perhaps because it is closer to dancing than to traditional sport, especially through the elegance and the general body attitudes in search of drama or fake smiles!  I would say it is not easy to escape the danger of kitsch, or at least not to cross the borderline between art and kitsch. When I think about it, I don’t understand why I love figure skating so much. Of course I love dancing, I love skating, but generally I don’t like mixing tastes.. it is like when we eat waffles here: Kevin loves to put chocolate AND strawberry syrup on them, and I can’t stand it, both tastes killing each other: what a sin! Or like in painting, mix too many colours and you get an ugly grey. I know, I am digressing here, figure skating is not at all like that, and yet, as I stated painting it, I felt the danger very clearly….

Figure skating 02 – by Miki

I won’t say anything about the results. As I always state: it is not up to me to judge my work.

I will just say one thing: I will persevere!

These paintings are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widgets below to access my FAA store

And more generally you can see all the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”